Introduction to APPLIED

LINGUISTICS
Lesson 5
1. LANGUAGES in the CONTEMPORARY
WORLD
2. LANGUAGE ATTITUDE
3. THE STUDY of LANGUAGE
4. HISTORICAL and DESCRIPTIVE linguistics
5. THE RLATIONSHIPS BETWEEN LANGUAGES

Mgs. Nina Nesterenko

1. LANGUAGES IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
THE MOST SPOKEN LANGUAGES
Mandarin(China, more than1bln)
English ( more than 570 mln)
Hindi (more than 500 mln)
Spanish (more than 400mln)
Arabic (approx. 300 mln)
Russian (approx. 300 mln)
French (appr. 270mln)
 Languages in the world
R Number of total
a countries where Speakers
n Language Primary Country the language is (mln)
k spoken

1 Chinese China 31 1,213

2 Spanish Spain 44 329
3 English United Kingdom 112 328
4 Arabic Saudi Arabia 57 221
5 Hindi India 20 300
Russian
6 Russian 33 200
Federation
7 Portuguese Portugal 37 178
VIDEOS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY-Y24rHmrE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8xJ21Sy3bM ( 10 most spoken languages In the world)
Attitudes, like all aspects of the
development of cognition and affect in
human beings, develop early in childhood
and are the result of parents´ and peers´
attitudes, of contact with people who are “ different “ in
many ways, and of interacting affective factors in the
human experience.
These attitudes form a part of one's perception of self,
of others, and of the culture in which one is living.
 Attitude : a manner of acting, feeling, or
thinking that shows one`s disposition;
opinion, or mental set, etc

An attitude is individual, but it has origins in collective

behavior ( approval or disapproval)
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lpzb6EoPeM (LANG ATTITUDE)
1. What influences people ´s choice to learn a certain language ? Why?
2. What is attitude? What is your attitude to languages in general?
3. Which language is best, more popular, more fashionable? Why do you
think so?
4. Think about 5 reasons for and 5 against learning these languages:
Thai, Hindi, Hebrew , Vietnamiese, German, Polish, Italian,
Mandarin, Russian, Dutch, Pushtu, Swahili.
5.In which situation it is best not to use your mother tongue? Why?
6. What is the most useful language to know around here? Give
reasons
7. What reasons made you choose English ?( state at least three reasons
for your preference)
 Language attitudes are
opinions, ideas and
prejudices that speakers
have with respect to a
language.
Language attitudes are the
feelings people have about
their own language variety
or language varieties of
others.
For example, it is often said that in order to learn a language, it
often helps to have a positive attitude towards that language.
http://www.openobject.org/modmania/Attitude_towards_Language
 ATTITUDE ( TEREOTYPE) TOWARD
Example:
FOREIGN LANGUAGES
English is very laconic language.
French is a language of love.
German is logical language.
Italian is beautiful and expressive.
Indians speak a primitive language.
Languages like Chinese have no grammar.

YOUR IDEAS?
 IMPLICATIONS OF LANGUAGE ATTITUDES
Language attitudes usually influence
attitudes of the speakers of the
particular language or the speakers of
the particular language or dialect.

Attitude toward a certain Language attitudes may

language may affect L2 /foreign influence how teachers
language learning. deal with learners.

Language att. may affect whether or

not varieties are mutually intelligible.
EFFECTS OF ATTITUDES ON LANGUAGE
Gardner (1972 ) LEARNING

Benefit
learning process
 HOW TO CHANGE OUR NEGATIVE ATTITUDES?
by exposure to reality by encounters with
persons from other
(ex: to learn more about the cultures.
countries where particular In this way we can
languages are spoken; in this change the stereotypes
way we replace some myths we already had about
with an understanding of the certain countries and
other culture as one that is the speakers of their
different from one's own, yet languages)
to be respected and valued)
 When studying language attitudes, the concept of
motives is very important.
Two basic motives : instrumental and integrative

Instrumental : the knowledge

of a language - a "passport to
prestige and success” .

Integrative : a learner
wishes to identify with the
target community; to learn
the language and the
culture of the speakers of
that language in order to
become a member of the
group
 Motivation: Non-Linguistic factors
RESULTATIVE

INSTRUMENTAL

INTRINSIC

INTEGRATIVE

EXTRINSIC
3. THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE

• Is languge itself a
simple phenomenon?
• Do we know everything
about language ?
 THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE:
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Interest in languages and language teaching / learning has a
long history.
Ancient Greeks
Plato and Aristotle
contributed to the
design of a curriculum
beginning with “good
writing” (grammar),
“effective discourse”
(rhetoric) and
development of
dialectic to promote a
philosophical
approach to life.
 The study of Language
The scientific study of human speech :
Wnen and Where:
late in the XVIII- early XIX century, Europe.
HOW:
Comparison of the languages which belong to the
great Indo-European family: Latin, Greek,
Sanskrit, Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, and some others

Result: how languages change, how they related

to each other, how they influence one another
 Historical Perspectives
History of languages of great cultural carry:
Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese.
 Ancient philosophers

- Languages are alive organisms ( gain space in

the world )
- Languages are a muscular activity
- Ability to speak is a natural activity, similar to
ability to breath, walk, see, etc.
 1.Ancient Greeks
theory

1.Language appeared by itself, without

interaction of laws of nature
2. “animal” origin of language – imitation of the
sounds of nature and animals, as basis for human
language formation
3. According to mutual agreement of all people
• A philosophical concern around the issues of
regularity of language. Some scholars
maintained that language was systematic and
regular - if language were not regular, it
wouldn't be possible for a human to learn it.
(Exceptions - irregularities )
 Streams in Language Study
2. Sophists (5th cent. BC, Greece )
Sophists- noun ( Greek) σοφία (sophia), meaning "skilled“
or "wise"
- Traveling teachers/intellectuals in Ancient Greece and
later in Roman Empire .
Topics included rhetoric, politics, grammar, etymology, history,
physics, and mathematics.
-Professional orators /Sophists: Protagoras, Dion Chrysostom,
Herodes Atticus, Aristides, Lucian, and Philostratus the Elder,
Socrates (Socrates accepted no fee )
 Streams in Language study: Sophists
(5th cent. BC, Greece )
Descriptive approach of language - the interest was on the linguistic
form rather than on meaning ( for students of rhetoric)
A few sophists claimed that they could
find the answers to all questions.
Many sophists taught their skills for a
price.
.

S. taught courses in various subjects,

speculated about the nature of
language and culture and employed
rhetoric (art of speaking well) to
impress or persuade an audience
later- negative connotation, “ tricky”)
 Streams in Language Study:
3. Roman Grammarians
• Roman grammarians were interested
both in the literature ( historical literary criticism )
and in the history and structure of the Latin language,
and thus, grammar was a broader study than the
word implies in contemporary English.
The discipline of grammar
developed together with rhetoric
during the Hellenistic and Roman
periods.
Grammar schools provided training
necessary for a student before
he entered a school of rhetoric.
 (Latin) – Descriptive theory.
The most famous Roman grammarian: Aelius Donatus, (IV th
Century after Christ ): the Latin grammar Ars Grammatica,
basic grammatical texts for the Middle Ages.
( Ars Minor, a shorter version) covered only the eight parts of
speech, was the first book to be printed in the 15th century )
Scholars concentrated on written language
(literature).
Lasted approximately 1000 years.
• syntax and semantics
• the terms vocabulum and verbum
 Streams in Language Study: 4. MODISTAE (13th -14thcent)
Speculative grammarians - were the members of a school of grammarian
philosophy known as Modism (France, Germany, Britain, Denmark)

They tried to explain why languages consist of system of rules and

forms.
The study was based on a theory of 'modes' of meaning in language:
- modes of understanding (modi intelligendi), and
- modes of being (modi essendi),
- modes of signifying (modi significandi).

To the Modistae, the various parts of speech were

viewed as representing reality in terms of these
modes.
The explanations were based on the relationships
between language, thought, and universe:
thoughts and knowledge are determined by the universe
and the language is a reflection of thought;
therefore, language is rule-governed.
The study of phonological, The first historical
grammatical, and semantic linguists noticed
changes, the reconstruction of
earlier stages of languages,
recurrent
and the discovery and correspondences
application of the methods by between the sounds of
which genetic relationships cognate words in the
among languages can be early Indo-European
demonstrated.
Historical languages. They
Linguistics explained these by
(Diachronic positing historical
Study of languages as L.) sound changes
they have evolved from
past to present (also - The study of language
languages lacking writen change
records and requiring - The oldest subfield of
“reconstruction”) modern linguistics
The study of the
grammar, classification,
and arrangement of the
features of a language
at a given time, without
reference to its history
or comparison to other The study of the
languages. description of the
internal phonological
,grammatical, and
semantic structures of
languages at given
points in time without
reference to their
Late XVIII cent. Description (India- histories or to one
DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS)
another.
 DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS

- Sanskrit (the ancient language of India and

the Indian subcontinent; is the earliest-
recorded of all Indo-European languages )
- Latin and ancient Greek : classical literary languages
- Sanskrit was one of the most important keys to the
Indo-European language study.
- When philologists in India started seeing similarities
across the languages, they were able to develop
methods of study, including the Comparative Method ,
and theories of language development from a proto-
language.
• Similarities ( vocabulary, sound, grammar )
 Indo- European languages

The term "Indo-European languages," refers to

the set of all languages recognized as
belonging to one particular 'branch' of the
evolutionary 'tree' of languages - that stemming
from the "common source“, identified as the
ancestral language Proto- Indo- European.
 Proto – Indo – European (PIE)
• PIE is the proto – language from which many linguists asume
that about 144 modern and extinct language of Europe,
Wester Asia, and parts os India were derived.

(Not all languages spoken in these areas descended from Proto-Indo–European)

Video: The Indo-European Language Family

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7lGF_QeXeg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpbjquTQT98 ( Video:Indo European
origin)
 Indo- European Languages
spoken around 5000-3000 BC in areas of Eastern
Europe/Western Asia
Words derived from the Common Indo-European language
are preserved in a large number of languages:
- numerals from one to ten;
- words for certain bodily parts (nose, eyes, heart, lung,
head, foot);
- words for certain natural phenomena (air, night, star,
snow, sun, moon, mind);
- certain plant and animal names (beech, corn, wolf, bear);
certain cultural terms (yoke, mead, weave, sew);
- pronouns
 Sansckrit
One of the oldest documented languages that
likely arose from a common root language now
referred to as the Proto-Indo- European language

The Kurgan hypothesis on Indo-European

migrations between 4000 and 1000 BCE;
The geographical spread of the Indo-European
languages, with Sanskrit in the Indian subcontinent
Proto-Indo-European L: reconstructed language that is presumed
to be the ancestor of modern Indo-European languages.
The study of PIE began when philologists in the 18th century
noticed that various seemingly unrelated languages had words in
common.
Ex: Father: The Sanskrit is pitar; Latin/Greek, pater; Gothic, fadar.
brother bhratar frater phrater Russian: brat

Regularities were noticed and systematically analyzed using the

Comparative Method. The original speakers of an Indo-European
language lived 5000 B.C.
Linguists determined that the language appears to have started in
the area of steppe (Kurgan, in Ukraine) and forest between the
southern Ural Mountains, the North Caucasus, and the Black Sea,
migrating out of there about 4,000 years ago
 Indo- European Language
• The Common Indo-European language was
inflected. It used suffixes and internal (root)
vowel changes (ablaut system) to indicate
grammatical information like case, number,
tense, person, mood, etc.
 ENGLISH WORDS form SANSKRIT
AVATAR - from Sanskrit अवतार avatāra, which means "descent”, it
refers to the human incarnation of God during times of distress on
earth.
MANDALA - from Sanskrit मण्डल mandala, which means "a disc,
wheel, circle".
GURU - via Hindi गुरु ultimately from Sanskrit गुरु guru-s, which
means "a teacher“

KARMA from Sanskrit कमम karman, which means "action”

SUGAR from Sanskrit शकमरा sharkara, Italian zucchero, Medieval Latin
succarum, Arabic: ‫سكر‬sukkar and Persian: ‫شکر‬shakar , Russian SAHAR,
Ukrainian ZUKKOR, Check ZUKR

From Sanscrit- SVASR - Gothic swistar; German Schwester; English

sister. Sestra – Ukrainian, Russian,Check, Polish

CHUKKER -from Sanskrit चक्र cakra, "a circle, a wheel“ (choker-

Spanish
 5. THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN
LANGUAGES
According to Ethnologue
( database on languages),
in contemporary world there
there are appr. more than
7 000 languages in 228
countries.

Languages may be highly related to each other,

minimally related , or not related at all.

(No exact info about languages spoken in remote parts

of the world such as the jungles of South America and
the African bush .
 World languages are classified in groups called
language families, according to their common origin.

A LANGUAGE FAMILY is a group of languages

derived from the same ( parental ) language.

Language family has a common ancestor, called the

proto-language of that family.

(Exception: Basque, Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish)

Distinct languages which can be traced back to
a common source are said to be
RELATED LANGUAGES
Romance L. Germanic L.
French, Spanish, German, Norwegian,
Italian, Romanian, Swedish , Dutch, Dane,
Portuguese, etc. English, etc.

Slavic L. Turkic L.
Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Gagauz,
Polish, Check, Azerbaijani, Turkmen,
Belorussian Tatar, Bashkir,
,Slovakian, Serbian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz,
Horvatian, etc. Uzbek, Tajik
 FAMILY TREE MODEL
( AUGUST SCHLEICHER, 1822 - 1868)
German linguist
Main work :
“ A Compendium of the Comparative
Grammar of the Indo –European
languages “ in which he attempted to
reconstruct the Proto-Indo- European
language to show how Indo-European
might have looked he created a short
tale, to exemplify the reconstructed
vocabulary and aspects of Indo -
European society inferred from it.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/gallery/2015/jan/23/a-language-family-tree-
in-pictures
To recover many features of a proto-language Schleicher
applied the comparative method as Reconstructive
procedure.

He created a family tree model of language relationships.

This assumes a “genetic” relationship between
languages in a language family in that all languages in the
family derived from a common ancestor called a proto-
language.
 Schleicher (1868)
Avis akvāsas ka

Avis, jasmin varnā na ā ast, dadarka akvams, tam,

vāgham garum vaghantam, tam, bhāram magham,
tam, manum āku bharantam.
Avis akvabhjams ā vavakat: kard aghnutai mai vidanti manum akvams
agantam.
Akvāsas ā vavakant: krudhi avai, kard aghnutai vividvant-svas: manus
patis varnām avisāms karnauti svabhjam gharmam vastram avibhjams
ka varnā na asti. Tat kukruvants avis agram ā bhugat.

The Sheep and the Horses

On a hill, a sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of

them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load,
and one carrying a man quickly.
The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me,
Seeing a man driving horses". The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain
us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a
warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool". Having heard this, the
 The British linguist, Sir William Jones (1746-1794)
He was the first person to describe similarities
among a number of languages. He made an
attempt to compare Sanskrit, Greek and Latin
languages.(Historical Linguistics)

Rasmus

Erasmus Rask (1787-1832)

Denmark, ( polyglot, over 20 languages )
He was a university librarian, a professor of literary
history and a later a professor of oriental languages.

E. Rask was the first person to outline some regularities in sound

differences in certain languages to determine the degree of
relationship between those languages and to reconstruct ancestral
( proto -) languages ( Historical linguistics : languages that form a
language family )
SYSTEMATIC CORRESPONDENCES
English German
house - Haus
drink - trinken
brother - Bruder
come - kommen
winter - Winter
dream - Traum
door - Tur
sister - Schwester
milk - Milch
butter - butter
bread - Brot
bed - Bett
father - Vater
mother - Mutter
 LINGUISTICS COORESPONDENCES

https://aryamccarthy.github.io/campbell1998historical/ Linguistic correspondences

 SIMILARITIES/ DIFFERENCES

Russian Ukrainian Check English German Spanish

Noch Nich Noc night Nacht noche

Dver dveri dvere door Tur puerta
Ruka ruka ruka hand Hand mano
Glaz oko oko eye Auge ojo
Golova golova hlava head Kopf cabeza
Moloko moloko mleko milk Milch leche
Mat´ matir matka mother Muter madre
 HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE LANGUAGE TO
CHANGE?
Lexicostatistics
Morris Swadesh,(1909 – 1967)
American linguist

Lexicostatistics is a technique of developing hypotheses about

the historical relationship between languages and dialects.
It is a theory of linguistic reconstruction of language ,
including when those languages and dialects diverged
from each other based on a quantitative analysis of
cognates.
Cognates – are words in different languages
that are related to each other because they
derive from a common mother language.
Cognates have the same root.
Set of words that might indicate locations - words that had to do
with climate, physical characteristics of landscape, types of wild
and domestic animals, types of artifacts .
Ex: Cognates for snow, cold, winter, oak, willow, bear, wolf, beaver,
deer, horse, sheep, goat, pig, cow, herd, wheel, seed, sew. (
European countries)

No cognates for tiger, lion, camel, monkey, palm, desert, rice,

ocean. ( “Warm “ countries)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOe4mkzBdCs
Video similarities between Spanish and Arabic)

VIDEO
history and origin of languages HOW LANGUAGES EVOLVE
(language family tree)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWDKsHm6gTA
Core vocabulary – 100- 200 words that
represent concepts of thought to be universal to
all or most languages.
( blood, eye, nose, skin, cloud, red, leaf, star, wet,
I, you, man, child , etc)

Glottochronology – is the study of the amount of

time ( rate of time ) that sister languages have
been separated from heir mother language
( 14% every 1000 years )
All languages change over time
(Historical Linguistics and its branch,
Comparative linguistics)
- Culture change
- movement of people ( trade, travel, war)
- new religions, beliefs, values, behaviours.
- language spread: Roman Empire
colonized a large part of Europe.
- The spread of British Empire ( XVII)
- Geographical spread ( Spanish,
- Portugues, English)
- Isolation
 Borrowings
They are common in many languages. We can easily find
examples of borrowing in our native language sometimes
even without realizing that the words are borrowed from
other languages.
Languages borrow words from one another under
particular conditions ( relationships between linguistics,
history, and anthropology- aspects of culture )

Borrowings – influence of other languages.

( English – from Latin- during Roman Empire;
Welsh – from English; Japanese from English; Spanish –
from English; Russian- from French, English; Ukrainian
– from Russian, Polish, English)
 Examples of Borrowings
• French : vernissage, massage, garage, recipe, route,
menu, camouflage, boulevard
• Italian: solo, piano, costume, paste, allegro, casino
• Spanish: fiesta, taco, plaza, guitar, pronto, rodeo,
mosquito
• German: Noodle, Kindergarten, Waltz, cool (kool),
Schnitzel
• Dutch: yacht, cookie, waffle
• Arabic: sofa, alcohol, mattress, algebra, alcove,
almanac
• Turkish: yogurt, tulip
• Chinese: tea (chai)
• Japanese : tsunami, sushi,
• Norweigian: sky, ski, skate, skull, skirt
• Borrowing in Spanish? English?
 Morphological Changes
TYPES OF LANGUAGE CHANGE
are changes in the words of the language and include changes
in the meaning of the words, the addition of new words, and
analogy.

Ex: fan- fanatic; dorm – dormitory

profe- profesor; bus- autobus;
licen- licenciado

Meaning can be broadened

/ narrowed
( ex: girl: youngster of either sex;
gay, silly, weed)

Addition of new suffixes: - gate ( Watergate, Irangate)

Some words may disappear ( archaisms)and appear new ones (
neologisms)
The word prevent has an archaic meaning of "precede " ,
today it means "hinder."
 TYPES OF LANGUAGE CHANGE
Syntactic change
Syntactic change affects grammar in its morphological and
syntactic aspects
The change in the rules for structures:
loss of endings, emphasis on prepositions, increase in
the importance of word order.
Ex: thy, thee, brethren
Mary always prefers limes to oranges. Vs Mary has
always preferred limes to oranges.
 TYPES OF LANGUAGE CHANGE
Semantic change
It depends on Sociocultural changes – changes in culture that
lead to changes in language, or changes in a language that lead
to changes in culture.
Examples: man – human being/ person;
man /men: fireman- firefighter
salesman- salesperson
postman- postal worker
policeman- police officer
sportsman / sportswoman
businessman - businesswoman
The use of pronouns he /she
HOW DO LANGUAGES DISAPPEAR? LANGUAGE DEATH

Social conditions
Some languages become unnecessary anymore
This is the case of Pidgin languages.

Pidgin language is a simplified language

that develops as a means of communication
between two or more groups that do not have
a language in common .
Pidgin is most commonly used in situations
such as trade, or where both groups speak
languages different from the language of the
country in which they reside (but where there
is no common language between the groups ;
old Greek ; old Slavic (nowadays it is used
in churches only) , Latin–in medicine and
church only)
Ethnocide ( destroying a people’ s culture ) :
Ex. Australian aborigines, North
American Native people
Genocide (killing of people) –the Tasmanian
tribes
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPvYK1RtuI (saving a dying
language)
Result of ETHNOCIDE - attempt to revive the
culture and language.
Ex: Cornish language ( one of the Celtic lang. ) – in South-
western England ( using old documents).
- Welsh (Wales ) – in 1980 TV and radio started to
- broadcast programs.
- Modern Hebrew (1922) – now it is official language of
the Jews in Palestine.
- Hawaii – programs to revive languages of South Seas
- islands.
 USEFUL LINKS
1. The history of language study
http://www.iep.utm.edu/sophists/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sophists/
2. The History of Indo – European languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages
3. Language Family : language tree
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/language.html
4. Historical and Descriptive linguistics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_linguistics
http://web.mesacc.edu/dept/d10/asb/language/history1.html
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Descriptive_linguistics
5. Life and main works by German linguist August Schleicher
http://referaty.atlas.sk/cudzie-jazyky/anglictina/21801/?print=1

6. https://aryamccarthy.github.io/campbell1998historical/ Linguistic
correspondences
 USEFUL WEB LINKS
http://www.slideshare.net/jahanzebjahan/syntactic-change
http://www.sheepdressedlikewolves.com/language-of-behaviour/
http://www.sil.org/language-assessment/language-attitudes
http://www.openobject.org/modmania/Attitude_towards_Language

http://www.iep.utm.edu/sophists/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sophists/
http://referaty.atlas.sk/cudzie-jazyky/anglictina/21801/?print=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_family
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/language.html
http://www.sheepdressedlikewolves.com/language-of-behaviour/
http://www.sil.org/language-assessment/language-attitudes
http://www.openobject.org/modmania/Attitude_towards_Language
http://www.slideshare.net/jahanzebjahan/syntactic-change
 WEB LINKS
VIDEO Linlks: languages family
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpbjquTQT98 (Indo – European origin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7lGF_QeXeg ( Indo – European lang.
Family)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PLc-FnKLOI (Uralic )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knqg9tHDWWQ (Altaic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lOnfFZYFNM (Language Families of
the World)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPvYK1RtuI (saving a dying
language)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY-Y24rHmrE ( 5 most spoken lang)
 TO BE
CONTINUED!....

THANK YOU!